Joanna Reed is the prototype of an overachieving type-A personality. Mature and successful, she teaches at a local college. She is a published poet whose work has received national acclaim. Her avocation is spelunking; in that arena as well, she is regarded as an expert.

Joanna's husband Frank is wonderfully average, and perhaps that is part of his appeal to her. He is, however, an accomplished sailor. They are summering on the coast of Massachusetts; on the morning of their anniversary, Frank goes for a sail.

As he is about to leave the pier, he sees a dejected looking girl on crutches looking as if she had been stood up. She confesses that she had hoped to meet someone who had promised her a sail, but he was a no show. Magnanimously, Frank offers to take her out.

Charis Langenberg thus comes aboard his boat. When they are too far from shore for anyone to contemplate swimming back, she pushes Frank overboard, tosses the crutches, sails away, and then abandons the boat and returns to summer school.

Thus in Chapter One, the murderess is introduced. Her flashbacks indicate that she was sexually abused as a child and as early as age eight she had been a porn princess by virtue of the machinations of her father.

Joanna refuses to believe that her husband's death was an accident, since he had always been so methodical about safety and boat handling. She is still trying to get the police to investigate two weeks later when her retired father is burned to death in a fire that consumes his home. This, too, is ruled an accident and Joanna's fragile mental state begins to crack.

Mitchell Smith has staged two murders, identified the murderess; what remain are the why and the effect on the survivors. He has done a clever job delineating each character and even manages to establish an eerie sense of intimacy between the predator and the prey.

Joanna, a cancer survivor, has used cave exploration to keep her body in condition, and her heart and soul together. It has always provided the opportunity for her to refocus her energies and to inspire her. For those who like the sport or want to learn about it, this book spoon-feeds a lot of technical data about it. To the author's credit, it does not overburden the story.

Reprisal is an absorbing story of murder, loss, madness and vengeance. For me it was even more powerful days after I finished reading it.

--Thea Davis